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I am a CPA with a background in development. I’ve gone into companies and performed analysis and then automated/developed some pretty complex issues. I’ve done the analytical and development work before leading other teams to research the results of the solution developed, test the solution, document the solution developed and put the solution into production. I had to do project management work as to how long these tasks would take. It involved complex accounting and working with a ton of data, transformations, sql, spreadsheets and many types software and languages.

I know most people are not involved in this many aspects in your typical SDLC shop, but the solution of me solving these problems wasn’t the first attempt to rectify the situation. As a contractor, my director wanted me to apply for an opening above him because of the results I produced and the difficulty of the work performed. I’m wondering what job title others would use to capture the type of work being performed?

Pete
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  • It's often extremely difficult to come up with titles for this sort of important work, and frustrating. Perhaps something involving "architect". Perhaps "CPA Accounting Systems Architect" ............... ? – Fattie Jun 25 '17 at 17:36
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    For non-English people your abbreviations make this question hard to understand. CPA is easy to look up, but SLDC = System Development Life Cycle? Please make your question clearer. –  Jun 26 '17 at 02:38
  • I'm not sure what is unclear... If myself, who performs these functions and is a Hybrid to IT, does not know exactly how to classify it, I'm not sure why people who do not understand the terminology or IT would be able to classify it and want to delay an answer to a question. I do like Fattie's answer (awesome name BTW) as I thought Solution Architect was close but that does encompass more areas not of interest to me as this was technical but more functional. – Pete Jun 26 '17 at 13:53

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Job titles, especially in IT, can be more or less meaningless in describing what you actually did.

I'd recommend using whatever title they assigned to your position when you were hired or promoted into it, and describing out your key responsibilities and achievements in that role as well.

There is more to what you do than your title, and as long as you're able to accurately capture what you've done in your role, the title you've placed there shouldn't matter very much.

As an example, where I work, there's a fairly ambiguous title for people who do much of this work, called 'Solutions Consultant' - It's a title, yet if you were to mention it to someone else, you'd surely get the question "What's that?"

There's a good answer to a similar question - where an employee is given a title that doesn't match up to their responsibilities or experience - here, posted by Joe Strazzere:

I've found over the years that overall, titles tend to seem more important to the individual holding them than to prospective employers. A hard-earned "Programmer II" title may be very meaningful to the person who worked their way up from "Programmer I", but conveys little information to the hiring manager in a company which uses a different title structure. Similarly, "Senior Software Engineer" at some companies means that you've been there a while, yet at other companies, it means a distinctly different set of skills and responsibilities than "Software Engineer".

Most (but admittedly not all) hiring managers and recruiters understand this. While there is the inevitable unconscious appeal to hiring someone with current title that exactly matches the title of the position you are trying to fill, most hiring managers can overcome this. Most will look at your resume to see if the tasks and responsibilities you list match the role they are filling - even when the title doesn't match.

Community
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schizoid04
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    Definitely use the job title you held - it makes reference and background checks simpler - and I doubt there's any title that properly encapsulates the OPs duties – HorusKol Jun 25 '17 at 21:39
  • @Pete, I did recommend you use the title you held. However, a quick search through other questions on the site here, and you'll find a consensus with what I've posted. Many, many people regard these titles as meaningless. I'm sure that's something that could change, depending on your region or industry, but it hasn't been the case for me, and I've seen similar answers replicated throughout WorkPlace StackExchange. If there's something you'd like me to add to my answer, please let me know, but just because you 'disagree' with an answer, does not make it the "WORST" answer. – schizoid04 Jun 26 '17 at 14:40
  • Please also focus on attempting to be constructive here (I don't mean that as an insult, but more a general explanation of the site). The goal is to provide useful questions and answers - Telling someone you don't like their answer adds no value to the question or answer - this is why I asked for feedback that would add to my answer in my previous comment. Otherwise, voting is a good option, and one that doesn't lead to extended discussion in comments sections. – schizoid04 Jun 26 '17 at 14:45
  • You realize that you've called my question meaningless and you're questioning me about being constructive? I wouldn't have asked the question if it was rational to use such a job title. In my experience, many ONLY look at the job title with my roles. MANY companies provide poor job titles with what I do. They either don't get the accounting... or they don't get the systems part... It's not straight forward and recruiters are not brightest bulbs. It is critical. I could keep going, but this reply is lacking and not constructive in the slightest. – Pete Jun 26 '17 at 16:15
  • @Pete I'm not calling your question meaningless. Your question is a good question. I'm saying that job titles - to most people - are meaningless. You touched on this a bit in your comment - Many companies provide poor job titles that don't accurately reflect the responsibilities of the employee. This contributes to the innacuracy of said job titles, which is why many people disregard them in general. That's all I was trying to get at in my answer. – schizoid04 Jun 26 '17 at 16:22
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    This is a good answer as it is the only answer and tried to answer a pretty unclear question to begin with. – Brandin Jun 26 '17 at 19:37